The Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) is a flexible, interdisciplinary graduate program that offers students from a variety of backgrounds the opportunity to study across the boundaries of academic disciplines in order to create knowledge from multiple perspectives. Firmly grounded in the values of liberal education, it allows students to design an individualized program of study that enables them to develop complex, nuanced understanding of human society and culture.

Graduate liberal studies programs provide an alternative to the specialized focus of many graduate degrees. While education for careers is useful, it is in itself not sufficient to satisfy the student's intellectual interests. Graduate liberal studies programs seek to develop and encourage exploration of values, breadth of inquiry, and intellectual versatility and resiliency, as well the ability to cope with an increasingly complex world.

MALS strives to ensure that graduating students are able to:

• Recognize complexity by approaching an object of study from multiple perspectives

• Articulate the systemic interrelationship of multiple factors that influence problems and phenomena of human society

• Employ critical thinking and analysis in approaching those problems and phenomena

• Demonstrate proficiency in related fields and disciplines that enables deep understanding of the object of study

• Integrate alternative and opposing viewpoints into a broad understanding that enables the formulation of comprehensive solutions.